


a sea of stars

by burlesquecomposer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post Season 5, Space Skype
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 02:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14843477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burlesquecomposer/pseuds/burlesquecomposer
Summary: The tight, family-like picture on their end is sort of cute, but Lance thinks the stark comparison just looks lonely—Keith, on his side of the call, is shown in the center, small and alone against the black backdrop of a cold metal wall. Possibly his sleeping quarters, or a hallway.Keith also seems to have picked the darkest corner he could find, so the lighting is horrendous—it’s so like Keith that Lance almost cracks a smile.AKA, Lance doesn't want to admit he misses Keith.





	a sea of stars

When they first set up video chat with Keith, the whole group joins in, cramming together to fit into their side of the screen. Hunk and Pidge and Coran put themselves front and center, partly so they can control the feed and make sure the connection keeps, while Allura and Shiro stand back a little and Lance hovers off to the side, feigning a casual demeanor. The tight, family-like picture on their end is sort of cute, but Lance thinks the stark comparison just looks lonely—Keith, on his side of the call, is shown in the center, small and alone against the black backdrop of a cold metal wall. Possibly his sleeping quarters, or a hallway.

Keith also seems to have picked the darkest corner he could find, so the lighting is horrendous—it’s so like Keith that Lance almost cracks a smile.

The others are such chatterboxes that Lance can hardly get a word in. Shiro in particular is interested to know what new intelligence the Blade of Marmora have been able to find in the past few weeks. The rest are all fun and games but Shiro’s all business, as usual, lately. Lance manages to ask how Kolivan is doing, which seems to make Keith stumble with a bit of confused surprise, like he wishes Lance had asked something else. But he answers that Kolivan is just fine, and that’s all he has to say. It’s a waste of a question, but Lance can’t come up with anything else. Nothing he’d want to talk about in front of the others.

Which is why, a few days later, Lance decides to contact Keith on his own.

Coordinating a time when they’re both free from missions or other obligations is a quiznak and a half. Lance can’t seem to get away from duty when it suddenly calls, or a nosy Hunk or Pidge who wants to know what’s got him holed up in his room with his communicator.

On Keith’s end, Lance can’t tell if he’s making up excuses. He’s exhausted after a stealth mission, or he needs time to train. Maybe he finds it weird that Lance would want to talk to him at all. Maybe Keith likes his new life and doesn’t want much to do with them. Maybe—

No. He can’t let himself think like that.

So finally, when they both have free time, Lance retreats to his room and locks the door. He sits on his bed, crosses his legs, and positions the camera before himself until his face is well enough in the shot. He repositions himself several times as he waits for Keith to call, jittery, oddly nervous, adjusting his hair in the camera feed until most of his cowlicks are smoothed, and just when he’s thinking he should take off his jacket, the communicator bleeps and Keith’s name pops up on the screen, obscuring his visual. Lance squeaks and dives forward to accept the call.

His finger slips and he rejects it.

“Aww, man…”

Before he knows it, Keith calls back, and Keith’s brows are furrowed into a dark line over his eyes. “Dude, what the hell? We spend all this time trying to—”

“Sorry, sorry! I hit the wrong button.” Lance flushes with embarrassment. “Your call startled me.”

“You were expecting it, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I just—never mind. I meant to accept it. My finger slipped.”

Keith nods, settling. “So it’s okay that we do this?”

Lance blinks. “Yeah, yeah, totally. Dude, I’m the one who came to you, asking if we could talk. I thought you might find it weird.”

“Maybe a little,” Keith admits. “But… no, it’s nothing.”

“What?”

His lips form a tight line. “This… I like this better. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the last call, the one with the whole team, but it was a little overwhelming.”

Lance snorts. “Yeah, Team Punk was just excited to get the whole thing working the way they wanted. _I_ had the awesome idea of drawing over your face on the screen, but Shiro vetoed it.”

Keith goes through a short series of several faces. He settles on amusement. “Team Punk?”

“Pidge and Hunk together make Punk.”

“That’s what they’re calling themselves?”

“Cute, right?” Lance laughs, scratching his nose. Keith chuckles with him, a rare sound, something soft—probably because he’s trying to make sure none of the others hear him—and soothing, but rough at the same time. It’s probably the first time Lance has heard it, yet it’s so familiar that Lance feels at home.

They fall into somewhat of an awkward silence. Lance studies him—the slight unkempt quality of Keith’s hair, the uniform that hugs his neck and the hood that drapes unevenly over his shoulders. He looks a little dark under the eyes like he hasn’t slept well, but judging by the way his body has thickened ever so slightly, at least he’s eating well, or training well.

“So,” Keith says, snapping him out of his head. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Uh. This isn’t…” Lance falters, and his ears feel hot. “I just wanted to talk to you. Like, one-on-one, and stuff. About, you know, whatever.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” He snorts. “What, you miss me or something?”

“No!!” Lance says too loudly. But Keith laughs, and Lance can’t tell whether he hates it or loves it. Damn space dust.

But it’s something. They talk. Keith complains a little about how the Blades do things, how he’s been reined in every so often for making snap judgments and emotional decisions. How hard it is to keep the mission going when one of their teammates falls. But he seems happy to be contributing something to these missions, as many of them as there are—they’re successful, and they help the fight more than Lance could say. Even though now, after Lotor’s supposed peace treaties, there’s not much of a fight anymore.

But Lance realizes, twenty minutes in, that he doesn’t really want to talk about the fight. That’s what anyone wants to talk about. And he gets it—this is a fight for the safety of the universe and all that, yeah, of course they talk about the fight. Maybe they _should_ talk about it. Lance frowns, watching Keith’s slow, uncertain speech pattern communicated in his reluctant words and his eyes, which avoid the screen.

He seems unhappy.

“Hey,” Lance says once there’s a pause in Keith’s words. “Let’s… not talk about the whole war stuff.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted to talk to _you_ , dude.”

“Oh.” Keith blinks, and it’s like his whole body relaxes. The tension in his shoulders, which Lance didn’t even notice, melts away. “Like… what?”

Lance nibbles on his lower lip. “Well… how are you?”

“How am I?”

“Yeah. Is that so weird of a question?”

“No, I just…” Keith sighs. “I’m okay.”

“Just okay?”

Keith reclines against the wall behind him. “Yeah. It’s okay. I thought I would settle into this whole Blades thing, you know?” Lance nods, listening. “I always thought I was kind of meant for this. Being a soldier, taking orders, doing my duty.”

“Are you kidding?” Lance barks a laugh. “You’ve never taken orders in your damn life. Where’d you get that idea?”

Keith cracks a smile. “Didn’t last me long in the Garrison, did it?”

“Not for a minute.”

“Okay, so I can’t fool you there,” Keith says. He’s back to a characteristic frown, one that’s thoughtful but sort of disappointed. “I passed the trials to get into the Blades, I’ve done my work, and I’m trying to go along with everything Kolivan wants to do… Think about the big picture, don’t get swallowed up in details. Don’t get emotional. It’s…”

“It’s not you,” Lance finishes.

“Yeah.”

“You know…” Lance sighs, doing his best to come up with words Keith will be receptive to. “You’re… you. And that’s okay. You just have to find where you fit. Where you’re the best you.”

The arch in Keith’s brow is sort of brutal. “I don’t get it.”

“You have to think about whether the Blades of Marmora is a good fit for you, not just as a fighter, but as a person.”

Keith looks away in thought, and a moment of silence passes between them. They’re not usually this quiet together, Lance realizes.

“You’re saying… I come back to the team?”

“If you want.” Lance’s face twists a little. “I… We miss you. It’s weird not having you around. And… we get worried.” He tries not to get angry now, but he usually does every time he thinks about it. “That stunt you pulled, when… Keith, you could’ve died. You _would’ve_ died. Just for that?”

Keith appears somewhat stricken. “You’re still mad about that? I have to do what’s best. Sometimes that means making sacrifices.”

“But you would’ve _died_.”

“And?”

“And that’s…” Lance throws his hands up in the air. “That’s stupid! You talk about not working for the bigger picture because it’s not you and then you throw it all away? Why the hell would you do that?”

Keith looks a little upset. “Lance, I just _told_ you.”

“Did you think there weren’t people who cared about you?” Lance feels his eyes stinging but keeps going. “Did you think we wouldn’t be sad? Did you think you had nothing to lose?”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a moment. He doesn’t look at the screen, and his arms are crossed, making him curl in.

“I didn’t think,” he says. “I just… acted.”

Which isn’t an answer. But Keith is resigned to take Lance’s scolding; he’s not fighting it. So Lance takes that as a small victory and hopes he’s gotten through to him.

“We need you, Keith,” Lance says quietly. “ _I_ need you. And I’m not exactly telling you to come back to the team, but I’m not telling you to stay away. You don’t have to.” He huffs a breath. “Technically, the big fight… it’s over. You can come home.”

Keith is quiet, and he’s so still that Lance thinks the feed may have frozen. But then he finally rustles with movement.

“I found my mom,” Keith murmurs.

“Your… what?”

“My mom.” He hugs himself, like he’s trying to recreate her there, make up for lost time. “She’s Galra. Mostly, I think. We haven’t really talked. I don’t know what to say, where to start…”

Lance stays quiet for a while, leaving room for Keith, but he doesn’t say anything more. Lance gives a little shrug in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Usually people start at the beginning.”

Keith laughs under his breath. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” But his frown returns. “I don’t know… I don’t know if I want to come back just yet. Now that I’ve found my mom, I can get answers to these questions I’ve had all my life. I can finally figure out who I am.”

Lance wants to say that Keith knows who he is. That he didn’t need to find his family to figure all that out. That he’s been feeling the desolate emptiness of family, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he has no family at all. But he senses he’s nearing a soft spot, and with them finally talking, he doesn’t want to set Keith off.

“Well… do what you need to do,” Lance says, soft. “I miss my mom a lot. I wish I could hold her, and tell her where I’ve been, even if I could just let her know I’m alive…” He sniffs. “So I’m glad you have yours. But if you ever want… You’re always welcome back at the castle.”

Keith smiles, though it’s muddled by some expression of sympathy. “When I can… I’ll come back.”

“Well, do it soon,” Lance says. “I don’t have anyone to make fun of over here. Besides Lotor. Lotor’s weird and pompous and I could honestly make fun of him for hours upon hours, but it’s not much fun.”

Keith’s smile turns into somewhat of a grin. “You saying you replaced me?”

“Hey, I thought what we had was special, we had that bonding moment and everything, you’re the one who left!”

Lance almost careens off the bed and nearly hangs up by accident when Keith shouts, “SO YOU _DO_ REMEMBER!”

“Keith, shut _up!_ ” Lance stammers, trying to turn the volume down. Keith’s eyes gleam with triumph, and Lance hates/loves that look. “Oh my god—yes, all right, yeah I remember it. I wasn’t ready for it. Will you shut up?”

“Ready for what?”

“I don’t know! It was a moment of weakness. It happened ages ago, c’mon.”

“Nope,” Keith says. “I’m never letting this go. You finally admitted it. Can’t take that back.”

Lance whines. “Never mind, don’t come back. I don’t want to see you and your dumb face and your dumb mullet ever again.”

“I’ll get a haircut.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Keith laughs, almost a cackle. It makes Lance freeze. He’s only heard him laugh like that once, and the memory is so distant that he’s never been able to recall it. But he has it now—Keith throwing his head back, mouth wide open with laughter and eyes screwed shut. It’s been a long time, if ever, that he’s seen him so happy and carefree. It makes him wish he’d been recording the exchange, so he could play it over and over, but it’s almost more special now when it’s temporary, fleeting, beautiful and just for him. And, forgetting himself, Lance laughs too. It’s infectious, and bounces off itself, and suddenly Lance is in a fit, and someone’s knocking on his door. Lance scrambles and puts a finger to his lips to shush Keith.

“What are you laughing about?” Hunk says on the other side of his door.

“Nothing!” Lance says. He shoves a pillow on top of his communicator. “I slipped and fell and it was kind of funny. Nothing to see here.”

“Oh.” Hunk pauses. “You okay…?”

“Yep! All good, Hunk. Hunky-dory…”

Lance waits until he hears Hunk’s footsteps as he heads off. He breathes a sigh of relief and lifts the pillow from his communicator. “Sorry… I should probably go.”

“Me too,” Keith sighs, sounding disappointed. “I need some sleep before Kolivan gets us up for… something or other.”

“You look like you could definitely use some sleep.”

“Hey!”

Lance laughs a little. “All the more reason for you to come back. I’ve got some stuff that would do wonders for your skin.”

“You want me to create competition for you?”

“Oh, it’s on.”

They don’t hang up for another twenty minutes or so. Lance can’t seem to stop coming up with something new to discuss, and Keith humors him, just as reluctant to hang up the call. Lance talks more about all the Altean magic stuff they’ve been experiencing lately, and Keith talks about his mom, and Lance says he wants to meet her. Keith says they can try to arrange that.

It feels good. It feels warm.

When they finally hang up after a back-and-forth of goodbyes, Lance falls back into his bed, bouncing with the buoyancy of the mattress. He holds the communicator to his chest and sighs and stares at the ceiling and can’t help but feel the vacancy there, the pieces of him, Keith, his family, the various friends he’s made on this incredible journey, pieces of him that perhaps aren’t missing—just very, very far away. Scattered like stars in the cosmos, sand and salt in the ocean, stretching farther apart by the minute, an inevitable parting of ways. It’s thoughts like these that make him feel ever stronger the empty space between him and any other living soul.

But his family is on Earth. And his family is here, too. And Keith is out there, somewhere, not that far at all when he really thinks about it. And Lance wonders if Keith feels this, too, in his own way. If Keith understands the restless space between them; if, as much as Lance, he's desperate to close it.

_All this distance, all this wonder, yet I still keep coming back to you._


End file.
